


Being Unseen

by meshkol (ashernorton)



Series: Endgame Fix-It Fics [3]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Doctor Strange (Comics), Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Astral Plane, Astral Projection, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, M/M, Mention of attempted suicide, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Tony's Stuck in Limbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 00:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashernorton/pseuds/meshkol
Summary: Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame!See notes for full summary.





	Being Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> _Summary:_ Tony tries and tries and tries to be seen, and then accepts that his 'afterlife' could be a hell of a lot worse. He can watch his friends and Avengers family flourish, watch Pepper and Happy find happiness with each other, and, the greatest gift of all, watch his beautiful baby girl grow up. Maybe he can't be there to hold her and support her and show her the love he feels, but he gets to be a silent figure in her life nonetheless, and that's a gift in this desperately lonely not-life.
> 
> And then someone sees him.
> 
>  _Notes:_ Once again, fuck Marvel Studios. Fix-it #3 of who-knows-how-many. Fill T-5 for the Tony Stark Bingo 2019: Secret Admirer. Fic is unbeta'd af, as per usual. Inspired by [this post](https://meshkol.tumblr.com/post/184536310759/stephy-supreme-mjrtaurus-stephy-supreme), and it went from _eyyyyyyy, it's gonna be a short, bittersweet but thirsty bit _and turned into 5.5k of fix-it fic. Because, again, fuck Marvel Studios.__

Tony spends the first minute in a blank haze, staring down at his body in shock.

The next hour is trying his damndest to hold and comfort Pepper as she weeps and screams and clings to his body and hating when he can’t.

The next twenty minutes after that, when she finally is pulled away and passes out from sheer exhaustion and emotional overload, is trying to get someone’s – _anyone’s_ – attention, pleading and yelling for someone to _see_ him.

He spends another five minutes curled in on himself, sobbing and trying to make sense of it all.

He spends the next thirty-eight hours trying to kill himself.

It doesn’t work, because he’s already dead.

* * *

He watches Morgan as her hair is pulled back into a ribbon.

He wonders if it’s creepy to obsessively watch his daughter uninterrupted, or if it’s even creepier that he’s going to be watching his own funeral. He supposes it doesn’t matter, really, because it’s not like anyone can see him, and it’s all still new to him. In the end, he refuses to feel bad for it, because he’s not sure if or when he’s going to finally fade away into some semblance of peace, and every moment he can possibly grab with his daughter (even if he can’t interact with her or wipe away her tears) is a moment not wasted. He might not get another chance, and he won’t miss a second if he can help it.

He steps out when Pepper comes in to put Morgan in her dress, rather used to phasing through walls now, and drifts along the guests of his wake.

He’s actually quite surprised that there are so many people there, if he’s being honest. He has...well, _had_ a lot of friends in his life but not a lot a lot of _friends_ , if that even made sense, and most people were friendly with him because of what he could do or give to them (or because of some hero worship or hatred or something). Still, there are so many people here, at their (not his anymore, is it?) quiet home on the lake, and he’s proud and humbled by their attendance. What an odd thing, seeing the people who genuinely cared and respected him now that he’s not there to possibly catch them at it and teasingly call them out on their sentimentality for _lil ‘ol me_. Such a strange experience, possibly even stranger than being dead and yet still lingering, if he’s truthful.

He lingers by Steve, who’s sat in a chair along the veranda and is being comforted by Wilson and, oddly enough, Barnes. He’s pretty sure that Steve hasn’t stopped crying for two days, his entire face splotchy and swollen because even his serum-enhanced body simply can’t keep up. Tony kind of hates that, especially since they had managed to get their shit together at the end, and he wonders what Steve’s thinking, if he’s blaming himself. Tony sincerely hopes he doesn’t; it went down the way it was supposed to, really, and even though Tony hates that he can’t be there for his daughter as she grows up, hates that she’s going to have an absent father just like Tony’d had (albeit with a lot less abuse, to be fair), he doesn’t regret his decision to wield the gauntlet. He may be in this weird limbo of death, and he might’ve contributed to the cycle of shame, but Thanos and his army are defeated and Morgan has a future.

That’s all any parent can hope for, he figures, and desperately hopes that Morgan will accept his choice when she’s old enough to understand.

Speaking of futures...

His eyes trail towards Strange, who’s looking quite dapper in his suit with Wong as they talk quietly by a cluster of trees. He’s always been too in love with Pepper to really register other people, and that hasn’t changed in his week of being dead. Still, he’d have to blind as well as dead to not be aware of how unconventionally handsome Stephen Strange is, all posh and cleaned up like some sort of rich businessman beside Wong’s more traditional garb. He secretly admires him from his position on the veranda, an absent-minded appreciation, and vaguely wonders what he’s like in bed. Probably a freak in the sack, considering how he’s both bizarre and stone-faced most of the time, because it’s always the serious, odd ones that are totally wild in the bedroom.

Then his mind wanders into deeper waters concerning the powerful sorcerer.

Strange looks gutted, really, just like he had during the battle itself if Tony’s recollections are accurate (and they usually are...when he’s sober, at least). He can’t really blame the sorcerer for what he’d put into place, because it gave Morgan and the _entire_ universe a viable future, and he hopes that Strange finds his own peace. Tony wishes he could tell Strange that it’s okay, that everything worked out in the end, that his choice was the right one in the grand scheme of things, but he can’t. He’s already tried, most determinedly, because if anyone was going to be able to see Tony in this wonky ‘afterlife’, it would be the cryptic, sarcastic, egocentric prior neurosurgeon from Nebraska of all places.

Of all the people at this wake, other than Morgan and Pepper, he wishes that he could talk to Strange, just for a moment, and tell him that everything is going to be okay.

* * *

As time goes by, Tony stops wondering if it’s a dream, because if it is, it’s a very good one, though bittersweet.

Earth rebuilds itself, slowly but surely, until the world is back to the way it was before: hard, soft, bright, dark, heavy, light, and full of pain and love. He wonders what it would take for humankind to finally cut the bullshit and get on the same page for once, and decides he doesn’t want to know. The calamity that would have to happen in order to instigate such global unity would make Thanos look like a party trick, and he doesn’t even know how the world would even begin to prepare for such a threat, let alone survive it.

He watches his daughter grow into a beautiful young girl, smart as all hell and a total smart arse like Tony always was, and it makes him laugh joyously until he remembers that he can’t give her a high-five or hold her close against his body, proclaiming with pride that _this little shit is my daughter and isn’t she amazing?_ He watches as she begins school – a brilliant, progressive institution that had determined the location of their home and not the other way around – and makes friends, getting into harmless trouble and once punching a boy in the face when he pulled her pigtail. She excels and flourishes, and Tony knows that she’s happy, which is the greatest gift to see for a father, and he wishes he could be there for every birthday, for every brilliant mark, for every play and music recital, and for every ‘disciplinary’ teacher meeting when she builds food catapults during lunch and forges her mother’s signature to get out of a ‘boring’ school trip, amongst countless other things.

It’s been four years now since his death, and he still watches his daughter. Not to near-obsessiveness, not like the first six months of this weird afterlife, but often enough that he feels like he’s a silent part of her life without it feeling decidedly weird. It’s tapered off recently, now that Pepper’s married Happy – and oh, there’s not a better man in the world, except perhaps Rhodey – and has settled into an easy family life, mostly because it _hurts_ to see his family move on without him, even as he is so goddamn relieved and happy that they are.

Tony just doesn’t understand, and will never understand, why he couldn’t have that life, why he couldn’t grow old with Pepper and Morgan and any possible grandchildren. He wonders if his sins had caught up with him, unable to be erased despite sacrificing himself for the universe, and that’s why he was always doomed to fear and depression and unhappiness and pain. There were good moments, yes, but other than Morgan, every single iota of Tony’s life (even with Pepper) has been dimmed and tainted by past actions or past traumas, or simply had been utter shit. Perhaps this afterlife is his penance, forced to watch his loved ones live and die happily without him, never having peace of his own or the possible hope of an afterlife with them once they all passed.

Obviously it’s not a universal thing – he hasn’t met anyone who can see or feel him, not even in the bustle of New York or the city centre of a small town, so either everyone gets stuck in their own slice of the present world when they die or Tony’s been left behind. Again. It’s probably the latter, anyway. For all of Tony’s infamy and celebrity, no one has really stayed with him through thick and thin, not even Jarvis. Come back for him on occasion, sure, or reunited with them eventually, but he’s always been left behind at one point or another with every person he’s ever known or loved, be it through love or career or apparently life itself. Even Pepper had gone long stretches of time without talking or interacting with him, and though they had had an amazing marriage, there had been frequent moments where she hadn’t approved of him building suits or teaching Morgan questionable mechanics, or had slept in the spare room for weeks after a pointless fight. Tony knows that Pepper loved him – probably even still does – but despite eventually accepting Tony’s forays as Iron Man, she hadn’t liked it, and that hadn’t changed even when she had earnestly, but warily given him consent to go time travel and defeat Thanos.

He doesn’t count Morgan in this, of course. She had been so young when Tony had died, and knowing Tony’s ability to drive away everyone and everything around him at least occasionally, she probably would’ve eventually realised that he was shit and left him too.

It’s fine, really, even though it hurts. He’s never really been good enough, not to be a father and certainly not for Pepper, and he can’t really blame anyone. Tony’s hard to love, and harder still to endure for extended periods of time, so even though a lot of people have stuck around (Pep, Rhodey, Happy, Jarvis), everyone else had picked someone else or had simply stabbed him in the heart with an ice pick.

It’s cool, though. It doesn’t matter in the end, because he’s doomed for this fucking farce of an afterlife but at least he gets to watch his daughter grow up.

At least he has that.

* * *

Six years after his death, he visits the Sanctum.

He’s avoiding his old home at the moment because Morgan’s asleep and Pepper and Happy...well, he’s never once been bitter or angry that the two of them hooked up and got married, literally at all because they’re two of his favourite people and they’re an amazing family, but there are certain things that he decidedly does _not_ want to see or hear, and those two having sex is one of them. Tony loves them both very much, but no. Just _no_. Abort, forever abort, thanks-ever-so, _bye_.

The last time he was here, it was empty with a massive hole in the roof and stairs, a magical hologram thingy displaying the stones and universe above their heads, but now it’s littered with robed young adults and new floors, all of them doing their bizarre wizard shit like reading books that spew sparks or walking through portals conjured from nothing. It’s not exactly wild in here, nor is it loud, but it’s definitely full of energy and bustle, and even though he’s been dead for a while, he still finds himself dodging flying books and relics that are glowing gold and orange as if they wouldn’t just phase through him like everything else does.

He searches for Strange for about three minutes, wondering if he’s even there, before someone _screams_.

At first, he thinks there’s an attack, the tried-and-true PTSD rearing its ugly head like it always does when he’s surprised, and he’s instinctively trying to tap his reactor before he belatedly remembers that it’s not there and therefore won’t activate his nanotech. Then he thinks someone’s gotten hurt, and even though he can’t interfere with the world in this half-baked afterlife, he still feels like he needs to do something, eyes darting around as he tries to discover the source of the commotion.

It’s a woman in brown robes, and _she’s staring straight at him_.

He’s completely frozen, utterly locked into the wide gaze of that woman’s grey eyes, and even though he’s dead, his heart’s still racing and he feels lightheaded. He’s been unseen for so long, intangible for years, and while he’s always desperately fantasised about what he would say if someone could see him, practising out the words to himself during moments of crippling isolation, he finds that he can’t even unfreeze his body long enough to make his vocal folds work.

Eventually, she whispers in a vaguely Spanish accent, “Oh my God, you’re Tony Stark. You’re _Tony-fucking-Stark_!”

And Tony’s frozen body jerks forward until he’s throwing himself at the woman, already sobbing with the most overwhelming surge of relief because he’s not alone, there’s _someone here_. He croaks out an “I’m sorry” for pretty much jumping her even as he buries his face into her neck, her body so real against his, and he just sobs and sobs and _sobs_ , managing to rasps out things like _you can see me_ and _oh god_ and _please don’t leave me alone I don’t want to be alone anymore_. He can feel her arms around his shoulders, cradling his head and stroking his hair, and she’s murmuring under her breath, words he can’t decipher through the loud cries that rip through his throat like a red-hot poker.

When the weeping trails off into sniffles and uncontrollable shaking, she says with audible wonder, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“I am dead,” he answers thickly, confused and trying to think past the raging headache that’s making everything slow and unfocussed.

“You’re in the astral plane, Mr Stark – that’s definitely _not_ dead,” she explains, and the confusion is getting more unbearable now. He doesn’t fucking understand what’s going on, or what that even means, and he wishes he had bribed Wong with an unlimited amount of food and money for books just to explain magic to him.

“I don’t know what that means,” he says honestly, throat raw and tight.

She pulls away and he has an instinctive need to pull this stranger back in, just to prove that he’s not a wraith of a man, but mercifully she keeps a hold of his hands as she looks him dead in the eye. “I can explain it to you, but it’d be better to get the Sorcerer Supreme. He has a lot more knowledge than me, a lowly apprentice, and besides, I believe you two know each other. He’s going to have _kittens_ when he sees you.”

“Strange?” Tony asks roughly.

“Yeah,” she says, and she sounds excited. “I’ll have to return to my body, which means I won’t be able to see or respond to you—” Tony feels his heart skip a beat and he has to grit his teeth to keep from hysterically begging her not to. “—but I’m guessing you can travel wherever you want, so you can just follow me. He’s upstairs in his personal quarters at the moment, studying an artefact if I remember correctly, and we’ll pop back into the astral plane, okay?”

He swallows, forces down the whine of disapproval to being alone again, even for a moment, and tries to get some control back. If anyone is going to know what the fuck is going on, it’s going to be Stephen Strange, and besides, Tony’s been practising his speech for Strange for years too.

He hasn’t seen the man in three years, since the last time Doom fought the Fantastic Four in Manhattan – as far as Tony knows, the Earthly stuff is left for the ballooning number of Enhanced or Mutant teams while everything else if left for the Sorcerers and the Guardians, so it’s not like Strange is a regular in battle. Tony always watches the Avengers battle when it happens, marvelling at their cohesion and family-like dynamics, a slice of Tony’s old life before Ultron and Thanos. It’s bittersweet and achy, but he can’t help but be a silent, secret observer, anxiously waiting to see who is injured and if they’re victorious. Thankfully, there’s been no deaths or losses so far, but Tony knows that it’s a matter of time before someone leaves this world, and Tony just hopes that whoever it is doesn’t get stuck in limbo like Tony is.

Tony nods and forces himself to his feet, watching as the woman makes her hand signs and then surges back into her body. He says out loud, “Can you hear me?” just to make sure, but she doesn’t respond, just shooting an earnest smile in the direction of Tony without quite making her mark and then beckoning him to follow her.

They wind through the Sanctum, dodging people and relics and magic, until they’re in a quieter wing of the building. They pass the library, where Wong is sorting through scrolls with his perpetual frown, and then walk down a silent corridor until she’s knocking at a plain, wooden door. Tony can hear movement for a long moment, and then the door is opening, revealing Stephen Strange in soft, worn clothing and reading glasses perched on his nose.

“Amelia,” he greets, finally giving a name to Tony’s saviour. He opens his mouth to speak again but the woman – Amelia – doesn’t even hesitate to cut him off.

“Tony Stark is in the astral plane, and he’s standing right beside me,” she says, and Tony watches as Strange’s face goes utterly white, full lips falling open and glasz eyes widening until Tony’s somewhat deliriously afraid they’re going to fall out of socket.

“Excuse me?” he whispers.

Amelia launches into an explanation instantly: “I was practising my astral form in one of the training rooms on the ground floor and he just _walked in_. Not going to lie, sir, I straight-up screamed, and he’s pretty shaken up. I think he’s been stuck there since—well, since _you-know-what_.”

“In. Now,” Strange demands, and steps aside so Tony and Amelia can enter the private quarters before slamming the door behind them. Tony barely takes in the space – stark and barren, with just a small bed (neatly made), a clean desk with nothing but an ageing computer on top, and a bookshelf with scrolls and tomes haphazardly placed on its shelves, everything dim except a ball of light hovering near the desk – before Strange is throwing himself into his desk chair and literally launching himself out of his body.

Strange stares at him with a quiet “ _oh my God_ ” and Tony can’t help it when the tears start again.

* * *

Stephen – because he’s Stephen now – spends a lot of time in astral form nowadays.

So do a lot of other people, honestly; it seems like everyone and their grandmothers is visiting the New York Sanctum now, all the way from Hong Kong to London to Kamar-Taj itself, all to shake his hand with a grin or simply spend time with him. After six years of overwhelming loneliness and the empty isolation of his ‘afterlife’, Tony is practically _high_ with the joy and happiness he feels.

Every sorcerer in the world, if they haven’t any other projects or pressing engagements (or battles to fight), is searching for answers to Tony’s predicament, and it’s the most touching thing he’s ever experienced. He wonders if it’s because Stephen’s ordered it, or if they’re volunteering their time, but either way it’s touching, and combined with the fact that they’re spending time with him, he likes to believe it’s genuine despite the clear hero worship for most of them. Tony’s always been able to charm the socks (and knickers) off anyone, after all, and while he’s not doing it to get into anyone’s pants, it _is_ because he wants to be surrounded by people who see and hear him.

Tony’s at the Sanctum for two weeks, leaving during the mornings and early afternoons for Morgan, when Stephen offers to go to the lake house.

Despite the twinge of unease and nervousness about seeing his family again, because it’s probably going to make things difficult and awkward all around, he jumps at the opportunity, and Stephen portals to the house about an hour after Morgan gets home from school.

Pepper’s in the kitchen with her, an expression of amused bafflement on her face when Morgan breezes through her maths – Pepper’s always been good at hard numbers, but she gets overwhelmed by anything that doesn’t involve accounting or statistics, and Morgan’s already doing algebra – and Happy’s cleaning up Morgan’s after-school snack of peanut butter and banana sandwiches. When Stephen knocks at precisely five in the evening, Happy’s already snapping to attention, muttering under his breath about security perimeters and not getting a phone call about visitors.

Tony can’t help but smile.

There are greetings when Stephen enters the house, Morgan throwing Stephen a jaunty wave before continuing her homework, but then they’re all quiet and attentive when Stephen tells them to take a seat. Without any further small talk, Stephen clears his throat and says gravely, “This is most likely going to alarm you, and we are working on potential solutions for this predicament, but I assure you that this is good news.”

“What is it?” Happy demands, fists clenched on top of the wooden kitchen table.

Stephen sighs and replies dutifully, “Two weeks ago, one of my apprentices was working on her astral projection, which is essentially going into a state where we leave our physical forms and enter a parallel plane of existence. In this plane, we can walk or battle on a different plane of this world without interfering with it, though very powerful individuals can if they choose.” He pauses for a moment to eye Tony’s family, and then says bluntly, “My apprentice found Tony Stark in—”

Pepper gasps so loud that Happy’s already reaching over, and Morgan flies out of her seat with wild brown eyes. “You found my _dad_?! He’s _alive_?!”

Stephen’s mouth quirks into a small smile and answers gently, “He’s standing right beside you, I’d wager.”

Tony laughs when she immediately starts looking around, her face flushed and eyes bright, and he’s trying his damndest to keep his tears in check. “Where?! Can I see him?!”

“If you’d like,” Stephen says with amusement, “but only with your mother’s permission. Your father is stuck in the astral plane, and has been for over six years. Right now we can’t get him out, nor do we even know how he managed to get stuck there in the first place, so the only way to interact with him is to enter the astral plane yourselves. It’s a harmless bit of magic with no side effects whatsoever, but understandably, your mother needs to give permission or, if she is so inclined, go into astral form herself first before allowing you to do so.”

“Mom!” Morgan practically shrieks.

Pepper’s sobbing into her hands, Happy rubbing her back and looking around the room as if trying to spot Tony with his own damp eyes, but she looks up with bloodshot eyes and wet cheeks and chokes out, “Tony’s really here?”

Stephen stares at her dead-on and says quietly, “He’s always been here, Mrs Hogan, and I’d tell you that he’s happy for you, but I suppose I should let him tell you himself.”

Pepper’s sobbing even as she follows Stephen’s instructions to relax in her chair, and then Stephen pushes two trembling fingers towards her chest and pulls Pepper out of her body, like a ghost ripping free. She blinks with wet eyes and stumbles against the floor, and then her entire laser focus narrows in on Tony, who’s standing by Morgan and shaking.

“Hey Pep,” he croaks, and then she’s running for him, not even distracted as she phases through the table until her warm, familiar body is in Tony’s arms, practically trying to climb his body and burying her face into his neck.

“Oh God, _Tony_ , I—” she weeps, and all he can do is hold her and whisper into her strawberry blonde hair, soft words of praise and comfort and understanding. He knows she needs this, even though they’re not married anymore, but Tony is desperate to hold his daughter and can’t bear to wait until she’s calm again so he rasps, “Please, Pep, I need—I need to see—need her to _see_ me, I’m _begging_ you, _please_ , let Stephen—”

“Yes,” she gasps, and Tony’s already looking up from her hair so he can catch Stephen’s eye, the sorcerer silently waiting in his own astral form for the thumbs-up.

He can hear Happy demanding answers through his own choked tears, but Stephen just murmurs a generic platitude before he’s directing Morgan as he did Pepper, and when he pulls Tony’s baby girl into the astral plane, the sound that comes out of Tony’s mouth is inhuman. He rips himself away from Pepper to collide with his daughter, lifting her up with a spin and immediately falling to his fucking knees as he breaks apart, her warm body in his arms and her sobs echoing his own.

He cries and cries and _cries_ , and for the first time in over six years, finally feels like he’s whole.

* * *

Morgan, Pepper, and Happy move to New York.

It’s an interim thing, just until they figure out Tony’s situation, because Stephen and the other sorcerers can’t afford to spare long hours in Connecticut when they need to do research or monitor potential conflicts. They put Morgan into an online school that she can access and complete at the Sanctum, and it’s beautiful even if Tony’s upset that she’s left her friends for the time being. Morgan doesn’t mind though, and Pepper is fine with it, taking the time in the city to make trips to Stark Industries in person instead of through video conferences or mobile. Happy splits his time between SI and the Sanctum, as well as family in the city, and there’s a lot of talking when Morgan and Pepper aren’t in the astral plane about everything.

Despite the awkwardness in the beginning, Tony’s pretty damn sure that he’s hammered it home that he’s not upset at their marriage in the slightest and everything’s pretty smooth now. Tony just loves that he has his little family back, even if it’s still in limbo, and it’s wonderful to fall back on the deep friendship he had with both Pepper _and_ Happy now that they’re no longer walking on eggshells.

Stephen jokes when various others begin visiting, after Pepper cleared it with him, and Tony’s suddenly surrounded by everyone he loves. Rhodey officially retired from the Air Force, but he’s a full-time Avenger now, so they have to work around it, but Rhodey cries for about five hours straight the first time Stephen pulls him into the astral plane. Peter is about the same – though he attempts to climb Tony like a goddamn _tree_ when he first enters, bawling his eyes out and all but hysterical for a good hour – and spends all of his breaks from MIT in New York with Tony and May. The rest of the Avengers visit when they can, and even the Guardians come to Earth when they get the message that Tony’s around.

Steve, old and grey and at peace with his life, is told that he’s too weak to enter the astral plane without his heart failing, so _naturally_ he demands to do it anyway. There’s a lot of arguing and pleading, but at the end of the day and with heavy hearts, they prepare Steve for the pull, making him comfortable despite the fact that it won’t matter in the end.

Tony and Steve talk and talk until Steve’s soul fades completely, a smile on his heavily wrinkled face as he says with a quiet, frail finality, “I’m glad I got to say goodbye to you, Tony.”

Tony’s heart breaks, like a part of him dies with Steve, and for all of their issues and past mistakes, Tony does love the idealistic bastard and always will.

They celebrate Morgan’s eleventh birthday in the astral plane, all of them wearing conjured party hats and playing conjured games until they pop out to have a quick slice of cake, and despite the fact that Tony can’t partake in the festivities fully, it’s still a glorious thing to be a part of it for the first time in years. He gets to dance silly dances with his daughter and ruffle her hair, gets to blow raspberries against her cheek and chatter about the basics of programming an AI (his gift to her, courtesy of Pepper getting his notes from an encrypted file). It’s utterly breath-taking and after so long being in crippling, seemingly never-ending solitude, he is completely positive that he has never been happier.

Somewhere along the way, he develops a bit of a pash on Stephen, which slowly turns into a lot more until he’s secretly admiring Stephen as he spits furious words at a particularly problematic relic and hears himself say, “God, I love you.” Stephen’s not in the astral plane when Tony says it, but that’s not a big deal – he simply repeats it the second Stephen _does_ enter the astral plane, grinning even as his heart pounds with nerves.

Stephen just rolls his eyes and replies irritably, still clearly frustrated with the aforementioned relic, “ _Obviously_. I love you as well, you damned moron, though we’re not having sex until you’re out of this fucking hellhole and I can fuck you properly. Now get over here and help me brainstorm.”

* * *

A year after being found, Stephen figures it out.

It’s a bunch of magical nonsense as well as scientific jargon that ultimately boils down to _no one’s ever used all six Infinity Stones before and ‘died’ from it, so there’s no way to know why it happened, but the only possible explanation is that while your body died, your soul was ripped from its shell and put into the closest plane of existence, the astral plane, because that’s where bodies without anchors go, and was kept whole by the Soul Stone’s overwhelming use during your Snap, as you were returning souls to reality while exchanging your own in its place._ Mind, there’s a lot more to it than that, but Stephen’s explanation had been near indecipherable to him, and Wong had just snapped that Stephen was the best of the best for a fucking reason and to leave the spiritual matters to the experts.

It’s not as simple as just throwing him back into the real world though, which is the expertise of Tony and his group. While it’s a weird thought, his DNA and stem cells – which Tony had extracted when he’d been fully alive and experimenting with the arc reactor (and, to be honest, Extremis) – have already been collected and delivered to a joint facility being manned Wakandan scientists, Bruce, Reed Richards, and the entire U-GIN Research Group in South Korea. After Ultron, they’d figured out how to make a synthetic body out of metal, but this time they’re working on an actual _clone_ that Stephen will put his soul back into via some wonky magical ritual, and the group is very close to a solution. With the Cradle, Helen and Richards both think that it won’t take but a few hours to create the body once they’ve done a few trials with other living creatures, and that’s going astronomically well. The best and brightest scientific minds in the world have, for once, pooled together their collective strengths and specialities to help Tony get a body back.

Hell. Fucking _Reed Richards_ is helping, and Tony’s pretty sure that if he wasn’t already dead, he’d be having a bloody coronary from the shock.

The press already knows about Tony’s (hopefully) impending return to full life, mostly because it’s all but certain at this point and Pepper had had to start legal proceedings (plus the Avengers are surprisingly shit at keeping secrets), and he’s still shocked to hear that there’s been celebrations in the streets, and according to Rhodey, they’re going to have a global holiday or some bullshit like that. Tony’s already running interference on that with Pepper and Rhodey as his mouthpieces, because despite his ego and narcissism, he is decidedly _not_ comfortable with a national holiday being celebrated on account of his ‘resurrection’, like some sort of half-baked, comically short, emotionally traumatised, jerkface version of the baby Jesus. For one, that’s just morbid as fuck, and secondly, he kind of just wants to forget it ever happened, settling back in New York – specifically Stephen’s _bed_ – and getting his life back on track after six years of limbo.

At least Morgan is amused by concept, though only because she thinks it’s endlessly amusing when Tony starts bellowing vitriol about the morons in Washington.

Mercifully, Pepper’s still a one-woman powerhouse, and threatens to move the entire SI complex to a foreign country if they don’t quell the stupid political play immediately.

* * *

When Tony opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is his daughter’s sleeping face.

The next thing he sees is that she’s solid, not slightly ghost-like like she is in the astral plane but real and sturdy, and that she’s wrapped around him like an octopus, snuffling softly in her sleep.

He stares at her in wonder, overwhelmed and lightheaded from the fact that _he’s fucking alive and real_ , and feels the caress of fingers in his hair.

“Welcome back to the real world,” Stephen says quietly, pressing a soft kiss against Tony’s temple.

Tony smiles as he takes the first real breath of his new future.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to mention that these past few days have included the most writing I've ever done without porn in it. These are strange, strange times, and I wholly blame Marvel Studios.
> 
>  
> 
> [Also read on tumblr.](https://meshkol.tumblr.com/post/184536310759/stephy-supreme-mjrtaurus-stephy-supreme)


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